Richard C Stanford:God, just everything about that article...The dumbass leaving his $2,000 dollar rifle in a rental car and forgetting about it.The Mails hysterical all-caps ASSAULT RIFLE! head line, showing exactly how much they know about firearms.And this little gem from the "victims":"'Oh my God, it's a gun,' Ms Fleissig's daughter said. 'I said, 'I think I'm going to throw up,' she recalled."

Yeah, the stress of the situation will do that to you... I mean, what do you do? Do you contact the rental company? Do you try and track down the owner yourself? Do you contact the police? Do you claim the rifle for your own, citing Finders keepers? Do you sell it? Do you take it to the range for a few hours and THEN return it? Keep in mind that she had her daughter RIGHT THERE, it requires split second decision making capabilities... I might throw up, too.

Not because I was worried about the rifle hopping up on its own and shooting me, though. That takes special potato derp right there...

Fark It:Fleissig said she and her daughter jumped out of the car to get away from the gun.

Like it was a rattlesnake or something...

I think a surprise bag in your rental car qualifies as a "suspicious package". Having a gun in it? Totally. Do you think having a mother and daughter check the bag to be sure explosives were not present is reasonable? I'm shocked she chose to drove to a police department with it instead of calling emergency response from a safe distance. That's what I would have done. Stuff happens. And as stated elsewhere--if this was a murder or crime related weapon--I would not want to touch it.

My daughter felt that way about dull kitchen knives until she was 7 and sharp ones until she was 11, then she started learning to cook. She chops veggies like a pro now (15). No accidental cuts, major or minor involving knives in her experience. Do you imagine kids should have the same comfort zones adult should have? Violence is abhorrent to the innocent. And that is a good thing.

learning a bit about guns would be a good place to begin. That's just totally wrong.

Germany during World War II, had several Sturmgeweher. There was the StG44, the StG45, the "Volkssturmgewehr " (which means people's assault rifle) series which were mostly semi-automatic.

It IS cute how you NRA types pretend to be experts when you know so little about the subject.

/but at least you don't think the phrase "assault rifle" was invented by pro-gun control people like most gun nuts.

You. Are. Wrong. The STG-45 wasn't even fielded in the war. The STG series of weapons were "assault rifles," in that they were select-fire, that's one of their defining features, the other being the intermediate cartridge.

Yeah, the stress of the situation will do that to you... I mean, what do you do? Do you contact the rental company? Do you try and track down the owner yourself? Do you contact the police? Do you claim the rifle for your own, citing Finders keepers? Do you sell it? Do you take it to the range for a few hours and THEN return it? Keep in mind that she had her daughter RIGHT THERE, it requires split second decision making capabilities... I might throw up, too.

Not because I was worried about the rifle hopping up on its own and shooting me, though. That takes special potato derp right there...

The way they talk about it, they make it sound like she uncovered a ticking time bomb. Even if you have zero knowledge on handling firearms, it's still perfectly safe for you to be in it's presence or pick up the case it's in and move it. It's not going to start firing on it's own.

What difference does it really make anyway? There's too much focus on technical features and definitions and not how they're used and by whom.

It's a matter of spin.

Most gun nuts seem to feel that no one but them is competent to have an opinion on gun control based on their being able to identify their favorite guns by sight. Of course gun control is a public policy issue and not a technical gun issue. It's like saying that you need to be a gang member to decide whether drive by shootings should be illegal.

Also, most gun nuts don't know anywhere as much as they pretend to which annoys me, since I am a military history buff and it's very obvious to me that they are trying to fake it anyway.

Rhypskallion:Do you imagine kids should have the same comfort zones adult should have? Violence is abhorrent to the innocent. And that is a good thing.

The act of violence, sure. But guns and knives are inanimate objects. If you're having that kind of reaction just by seeing or being near one, then you should seek help since you must have had a traumatic experience with one. That's not healthy otherwise.

Fark It:Ms Fleissig's daughtrer opened the bag expecting to find an ID, she instead found the firearm.'We got out of the car, we were kind of freaked out,' she told the paper. 'I didn't want to touch it.'Both women were stunned.'Oh my God, it's a gun,' Ms Fleissig's daughter said. 'I said, 'I think I'm going to throw up,' she recalled.

Seriously?

These are just people who want "reasonable" restrictions on gun ownership.

What difference does it really make anyway? There's too much focus on technical features and definitions and not how they're used and by whom.

It's a matter of spin.

Most gun nuts seem to feel that no one but them is competent to have an opinion on gun control based on their being able to identify their favorite guns by sight. Of course gun control is a public policy issue and not a technical gun issue. It's like saying that you need to be a gang member to decide whether drive by shootings should be illegal.

Also, most gun nuts don't know anywhere as much as they pretend to which annoys me, since I am a military history buff and it's very obvious to me that they are trying to fake it anyway.

You are correct. Expecting an individual who demands a ban on barrel shrouds to actually know what barrel shrouds are and why they should be banned is wholly unreasonable.

I suspect that politicians will next be expected to have an understanding of women's reproductive health before authoring bills legislating medical procedures related to women's reproductive health.

Though not selective fire (probably---- A famous millionaire may very well have a class 3 permit and a select fire lower) I'd probably call the ar-15 an assault rifle. Intermediate Cartridge, Pistol grip, and large magazine would make it pretty handy to have on an assault. Sure you don't have suppression fire on full auto but really in most situations its just a waste of ammunition.

coeyagi:tblax: My favorite part about these threads is all the gun nerds flipping a tit over terms

Exactly. OMG, they said "Assault Rifle", and it's NOT an assault rifle, therefore the gun owner was completely responsible and the article writer is the irresponsible one!

Deflection is all they have.

I recognize both that leaving a rifle in a rented vehicle is irresponsible and that describing the rifle as an "assault rifle" is factually incorrect. However, I understand your need to claim that a correction of incorrect information is "deflection", given that you cannot actually show the correction to be false.

HeadLever:Nina_Hartley's_Ass: Responsible Gun Owners just leave their guns laying around everywhere. No charges.

We don't charge you for leaving your 'free speech' laying around everywhere here on Fark, do we?

Um, you're not going to win that one, buddy. "A" for effort though.

//in other words, there are myriad laws that govern gun ownership and use, which most gun owners have no problem with. I think leaving a weapon in a car would be labeled "irresponsible" by most gun owners, don't you?

Rhypskallion:I think a surprise bag in your rental car qualifies as a "suspicious package". Having a gun in it? Totally. Do you think having a mother and daughter check the bag to be sure explosives were not present is reasonable? I'm shocked she chose to drove to a police department with it instead of calling emergency response from a safe distance. That's what I would have done. Stuff happens. And as stated elsewhere--if this was a murder or crime related weapon--I would not want to touch it.

I think it is unreasonable to assume that there would be a bomb to go along with a rifle. If it was a crime weapon it wouldn't have well over $1k worth of accessories on it, and it would be at the bottom of a large body of water. I would have probably touched it to check to see if it was loaded, and then unloaded it if necessary. It being a rental car I would assume that somebody left it there, and that it's highly unlikely a criminal with a $2k rifle would leave a murder weapon in a rental car, that you need state-ID and a credit card to rent, where the rental agency has you on video when you check out and drop it off. But then again, I'm kind of thoughtful and don't go clutching my pearls.

My daughter felt that way about dull kitchen knives until she was 7 and sharp ones until she was 11, then she started learning to cook. She chops veggies like a pro now (15). No accidental cuts, major or minor involving knives in her experience. Do you imagine kids should have the same comfort zones adult should have? Violence is abhorrent to the innocent. And that is a good thing.

Well, your daughter was still a child. The woman in this case was an adult med student visiting potential residency programs. And there's nothing inherently violent about a gun all by itself.

/find it ironic that you profess an affinity for martial arts in your profile//"Violence is abhorrent to the innocent."

Dimensio:Fark It: Ms Fleissig's daughtrer opened the bag expecting to find an ID, she instead found the firearm.'We got out of the car, we were kind of freaked out,' she told the paper. 'I didn't want to touch it.'Both women were stunned.'Oh my God, it's a gun,' Ms Fleissig's daughter said. 'I said, 'I think I'm going to throw up,' she recalled.

Seriously?

Did you not view the image of the rifle? It features both a pistol grip and a collapsing stock. At any time it might have spontaneously caused several dozen people to fall over dead merely through proximity.

I am unable to determine whether the firearm also features a flash hider or threaded barrel, which of course would cause it to be even more volatile and dangerous.

That may not be a collapsible stock, it may just be a shock absorbing stock... I've seen ones like that tat don't collapse, they just compress to reduce recoil, like a shock absorber... That handgrip is deadly though.

What difference does it really make anyway? There's too much focus on technical features and definitions and not how they're used and by whom.

It's a matter of spin.

Most gun nuts seem to feel that no one but them is competent to have an opinion on gun control based on their being able to identify their favorite guns by sight. Of course gun control is a public policy issue and not a technical gun issue. It's like saying that you need to be a gang member to decide whether drive by shootings should be illegal.

Also, most gun nuts don't know anywhere as much as they pretend to which annoys me, since I am a military history buff and it's very obvious to me that they are trying to fake it anyway.

I don't expect anti's to be experts either, and I especially don't care about crap like mag vs clip; it's a waste of breath arguing about minor points when the words are used interchangeably. But sometimes they make some outrageously bad errors, that even basic knowledge on the topic would cover. The classic example being the should thing that goes up.

GoldSpider:Fark It: Ms Fleissig's daughtrer opened the bag expecting to find an ID, she instead found the firearm.'We got out of the car, we were kind of freaked out,' she told the paper. 'I didn't want to touch it.'Both women were stunned.'Oh my God, it's a gun,' Ms Fleissig's daughter said. 'I said, 'I think I'm going to throw up,' she recalled.

Seriously?

These are just people who want "reasonable" restrictions on gun ownership.

Reasonable.

Is banning popular civilian sporting rifles based upon the presence of cosmetic features that give the firearms a "menacing" appearance not "reasonable"?

Dimensio:coeyagi: tblax: My favorite part about these threads is all the gun nerds flipping a tit over terms

Exactly. OMG, they said "Assault Rifle", and it's NOT an assault rifle, therefore the gun owner was completely responsible and the article writer is the irresponsible one!

Deflection is all they have.

I recognize both that leaving a rifle in a rented vehicle is irresponsible and that describing the rifle as an "assault rifle" is factually incorrect. However, I understand your need to claim that a correction of incorrect information is "deflection", given that you cannot actually show the correction to be false.

Why bring it up at all? Why not be the bigger man and get to the heart of the issue, that the b*tch was irresponsible. I know, I know, your agenda, furthermore and comma. You're a reasonable person in non gun threads, but pretty much insufferable in gun threads. FYI.

What difference does it really make anyway? There's too much focus on technical features and definitions and not how they're used and by whom.

It's a matter of spin.

Most gun nuts seem to feel that no one but them is competent to have an opinion on gun control based on their being able to identify their favorite guns by sight. Of course gun control is a public policy issue and not a technical gun issue. It's like saying that you need to be a gang member to decide whether drive by shootings should be illegal.

Also, most gun nuts don't know anywhere as much as they pretend to which annoys me, since I am a military history buff and it's very obvious to me that they are trying to fake it anyway.

I forgot how specificity and definitions aren't important when it comes to public policy.

Yeah, the stress of the situation will do that to you... I mean, what do you do? Do you contact the rental company? Do you try and track down the owner yourself? Do you contact the police? Do you claim the rifle for your own, citing Finders keepers? Do you sell it? Do you take it to the range for a few hours and THEN return it? Keep in mind that she had her daughter RIGHT THERE, it requires split second decision making capabilities... I might throw up, too.

Not because I was worried about the rifle hopping up on its own and shooting me, though. That takes special potato derp right there...

Yes, though I wouldn't "jump" out of the car, but the words "rental car" and "rifle left behind" invokes all sorts of images that just can't end up well. My first assumption would be to get the hell out of there, too, mostly because I would assume a crime had been committed.

learning a bit about guns would be a good place to begin. That's just totally wrong.

Germany during World War II, had several Sturmgeweher. There was the StG44, the StG45, the "Volkssturmgewehr " (which means people's assault rifle) series which were mostly semi-automatic.

It IS cute how you NRA types pretend to be experts when you know so little about the subject.

/but at least you don't think the phrase "assault rifle" was invented by pro-gun control people like most gun nuts.

I guess I should feel obligated to point out that the gun you are talking about was produced for maybe the last month of the war and was part of Germany's "Primitive Weapon" program. It shouldn't really be dictating modern firearms definitions, especially when its predecessor and its derivatives use completely different technology and have hundreds if not thousands more in production and still circulating worldwide. There's not a single army in the world that defines an assault rifle as anything other than a select-fire weapon, intermediate cartridge weapon with a detachable magazine.

Also there were fewer than 30 StG 45s made, so we can both discount that one as anything useful or definitive in this debate.

coeyagi:Dimensio: coeyagi: tblax: My favorite part about these threads is all the gun nerds flipping a tit over terms

Exactly. OMG, they said "Assault Rifle", and it's NOT an assault rifle, therefore the gun owner was completely responsible and the article writer is the irresponsible one!

Deflection is all they have.

I recognize both that leaving a rifle in a rented vehicle is irresponsible and that describing the rifle as an "assault rifle" is factually incorrect. However, I understand your need to claim that a correction of incorrect information is "deflection", given that you cannot actually show the correction to be false.

Why bring it up at all? Why not be the bigger man and get to the heart of the issue, that the b*tch was irresponsible. I know, I know, your agenda, furthermore and comma. You're a reasonable person in non gun threads, but pretty much insufferable in gun threads. FYI.

Ms Fleissig's daughtrer opened the bag expecting to find an ID, she instead found the firearm.'We got out of the car, we were kind of freaked out,' she told the paper. 'I didn't want to touch it.'Both women were stunned.'Oh my God, it's a gun,' Ms Fleissig's daughter said. 'I said, 'I think I'm going to throw up,' she recalled.

Says the lady driving an SUV that could kill countless people if it goes out of control and plows into a crowded sidewalk.."OH the humanity"

CSB - Only fun thing I have found in a rental car was porn, gay porn at that, NTTIAWWT.

Dimensio:Just as you are "objectively wrong" when you declare that a rifle that operates only in a semi-automatic fashion is an "assault rifle".

That's your answer? "Uh UHHHH! YOU!"

Really?

You can stamp your feet and pretend whatever you want, but the term "assault weapon" defined in law. It's something that can be proven in court.

Also it's common vernacular. It doesn't really matter if you approve of the term or not, you don't have any authority to dictate the English language to anyone. It's like an anti-abortion protester trying to claim that the term "pro choice" doesn't exist.

And an assault rifle doesn't stop being an assault rifle if you make it semi automatic any more than a dog stops being a dog if it loses a leg. Even if you were to de-mil it entirely so it didn't fire, it would sill be an assault rifle.

What difference does it really make anyway? There's too much focus on technical features and definitions and not how they're used and by whom.

It's a matter of spin.

Most gun nuts seem to feel that no one but them is competent to have an opinion on gun control based on their being able to identify their favorite guns by sight. Of course gun control is a public policy issue and not a technical gun issue. It's like saying that you need to be a gang member to decide whether drive by shootings should be illegal.

Also, most gun nuts don't know anywhere as much as they pretend to which annoys me, since I am a military history buff and it's very obvious to me that they are trying to fake it anyway.

I forgot how specificity and definitions aren't important when it comes to public policy.

I do not understand why Congress does not better regulate automobiles. At present, vehicles with spoilers, air dams, hood scoops and chrome exhaust tips -- features that serve no civilian commuter purpose -- are sold without any regulation. I demand a race car ban, also banning all models of the Honda Civic, the Volvo S40 and the Mazda 3 by name.

learning a bit about guns would be a good place to begin. That's just totally wrong.

Germany during World War II, had several Sturmgeweher. There was the StG44, the StG45, the "Volkssturmgewehr " (which means people's assault rifle) series which were mostly semi-automatic.

It IS cute how you NRA types pretend to be experts when you know so little about the subject.

/but at least you don't think the phrase "assault rifle" was invented by pro-gun control people like most gun nuts.

I guess I should feel obligated to point out that the gun you are talking about was produced for maybe the last month of the war and was part of Germany's "Primitive Weapon" program. It shouldn't really be dictating modern firearms definitions, especially when its predecessor and its derivatives use completely different technology and have hundreds if not thousands more in production and still circulating worldwide. There's not a single army in the world that defines an assault rifle as anything other than a select-fire weapon, intermediate cartridge weapon with a detachable magazine.

Also there were fewer than 30 StG 45s made, so we can both discount that one as anything useful or definitive in this debate.

I guess my use of "predecessor" might be a bit confusing. I mean the StG 44 and the assault rifles derived from it. It's not actually a technical predecessor to the pathetic weapons made by the Reich at the end of the WW2, just that it was the weapon in use before they ran out of the material and ability to manufacture those guns by the end of WW2.

Mikey1969:Dimensio: Fark It: Ms Fleissig's daughtrer opened the bag expecting to find an ID, she instead found the firearm.'We got out of the car, we were kind of freaked out,' she told the paper. 'I didn't want to touch it.'Both women were stunned.'Oh my God, it's a gun,' Ms Fleissig's daughter said. 'I said, 'I think I'm going to throw up,' she recalled.

Seriously?

Did you not view the image of the rifle? It features both a pistol grip and a collapsing stock. At any time it might have spontaneously caused several dozen people to fall over dead merely through proximity.

I am unable to determine whether the firearm also features a flash hider or threaded barrel, which of course would cause it to be even more volatile and dangerous.

That may not be a collapsible stock, it may just be a shock absorbing stock... I've seen ones like that tat don't collapse, they just compress to reduce recoil, like a shock absorber... That handgrip is deadly though.

Naah, that's a adjustable (collapsible) stock, LMT's SOPMOD. Does have a shock absorber rubber pad on the ass-end of it, but no integrated shocks.

And lastly, not everyone is a gun nut. Finding one in a rental car could lead any normal person to several unappealing conclusions about possible crimes committed, etc.

I would have come to similar conclusions if I found a Hi-Point in the glove box, or a sawed-off shotgun under the seat....

vpb:You can stamp your feet and pretend whatever you want, but the term "assault weapon" defined in law.

And it's defined differently based on what jurisdiction you're in.

Also it's common vernacular.

Thanks to the Orwellian efforts of gun control advocates, who seek to cast an ever increasing amount of firearms under the "assault weapon" banner.

And an assault rifle doesn't stop being an assault rifle if you make it semi automatic any more than a dog stops being a dog if it loses a leg. Even if you were to de-mil it entirely so it didn't fire, it would sill be an assault rifle.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the reasonable, commonsense gun control advocate.

vpb:Dimensio:Just as you are "objectively wrong" when you declare that a rifle that operates only in a semi-automatic fashion is an "assault rifle".

That's your answer? "Uh UHHHH! YOU!"

Really?

You can stamp your feet and pretend whatever you want, but the term "assault weapon" defined in law. It's something that can be proven in court.

Also it's common vernacular. It doesn't really matter if you approve of the term or not, you don't have any authority to dictate the English language to anyone. It's like an anti-abortion protester trying to claim that the term "pro choice" doesn't exist.

And an assault rifle doesn't stop being an assault rifle if you make it semi automatic any more than a dog stops being a dog if it loses a leg. Even if you were to de-mil it entirely so it didn't fire, it would sill be an assault rifle.

Well if it's de-miled entirely, it wouldn't fire and it would cease to be a firearm. An assault rifle doesn't stop being an assault rifle if you switch it to semi-auto. Just flip the lever and set it to single shot or burst/auto (depending on the gun).